The search for flood victims drags on as Sierra Martin scans through North Shore's neighborhood and highway with her truck — the same vehicle she used to rescue seven people during the March 20 floods.
The problem she and her outreach team from the nonprofit Kealahou West O‘ahu have run into is that flood victims are sometimes hard to find.
“It's harder to find them because they are not comfortable with being seen,” said Martin, Kealahou West O‘ahu's Housing Worker, who is based in the Wahiawā and North Shore areas. “They can easily camouflage into their community as a regular community member, and you’d never know that they’re homeless until you actually talk to them.”
Hundreds of families across O‘ahu's North Shore have been left to pick up the pieces after the second Kona low storm swept through the low-lying areas of Haleʻiwa and Waialua. Some who fled their homes were able to return and clean up soupy mud the floods left behind, while other residents’ homes were left in shambles and unlivable.
Outreach workers said there has been an increase in homelessness since the floods, and residents said there have been issues with support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and lack of shelters in the North Shore.
In March, Martin said the nonprofit served 22 North Shore households. It's a mixed group of renters and homeowners who lost their homes to the floods.
“The floods displaced so many people,” Martin said to HPR. “The good thing is that a lot of people nearby opened their homes to help these people, which is great, so they can stay in their community that they love so much. But for those who don’t have any connections or relationship with their neighbors or the community, they have no choice but to explore shelter options.”
Not a one size shoe fits all
Many residents prefer to stay as close to the North Shore as possible. That’s concerning to Martin, especially if people don’t have families or friends to stay with.
She has clients paying out of pocket living in hotels until they’re able to return home to Haleʻiwa or Waialua. Another issue is that not many flood victims want to stay in a shelter because of curfews or it's far away from their neighborhood or jobs.
“It becomes traumatic to pull someone from what they've known for so long,” Martin said. “It's kind of like putting them in the boonies, where they end up feeling like the shelter is like a prison. That's why a lot of people end up leaving the shelter, while others stick it out and they just trust the process.”
Data from the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency show that more than 31 homes have been destroyed on Hawaiʻi Island, Maui and Oʻahu. Over 1,200 people have applied for federal disaster recovery aid.
Dominique Rollins is a homeowner who has lived in Waialua since 1996. Her house moved 10 feet during the floods.
Since March, she has relocated three times, staying with friends. She criticized the disorganized distribution of resources, including slow insurance payouts and limited housing options in the Haleʻiwa and Waialua areas.
“Virutally you were living out of your suitcase, if you even had a suitcase left with stuff in it,” she said. “It wasn’t like, in my opinion, solid resources. I might have been all that they could do.”
Rollins has heard some people received their payouts on flood insurance, although she is still waiting for hers.
“Governemnt is slow,” she said. “If you’re expecting government to be fast, it’s not going to happen, unfortunately. You just have to learn to have our own resources, help yourself and build your own network on situations. If you’re waiting for FEMA, the state or the city to come and rescue you, you’re going to be old and gray by the time that happens.”
Rollins is hopeful she’ll be able to return home by the holidays.
“Unless there's another flood, and then we put a for sale sign and move to the mainland,” she said.
Riding out the storm
Weeks before the first Kona low, homeless outreach workers had been warning people on the streets to seek shelter. Many chose to stay put during the storm out of fear that their belongings would be lost or stolen if they left them behind and because some shelters don’t allow pets.
Kacey Bond has been on-and-off homeless for more than a year. On March 20, he was fishing near Mokulēʻia Beach Park at 1 a.m. He didn't get an evacuation alert on his phone but noticed it started pouring rain.
When he got into his car to drive down Farrington Highway, that's when the floods came.
“The more I drove, the more the water was going up higher and higher,” he said. “It hit my elbow.”
Bond said he got stuck by the polo field in North Shore and got on top of his car, where he waited in the rain until he was rescued later that day.
“Everything was chaos,” he said.
Later on that morning, Sierra Martin was already out there assisting people to get to shelter. She had crammed seven people in her car, including a man in a wheelchair, who was waiting hours at a bus stop in Haleʻiwa.
Martin also had driven down Farrington Highway to rescue a woman in her car. Martin used her truck to cut the water so the woman in her smaller car could drive through the floods.
That day, the nonprofit had rescued 48 people and evacuated them to an evacuation shelter at the Wahiawā District Park.
“We felt like we were first responders,” she said. “It was crazy, but it was a blessing too. It was honestly by the grace of God that we were able to do all of that.”
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